The tide had to be just right. We had to be in the water at the very moment the tide was right. [...] Each time we did it I was afraid of missing the swell, hanging back, timing it wrong. John never was. You had to feel the swell change. You had to go with the change. He told me that. No eye is on the sparrow but he did tell me that. Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking